Job hunting - tips and tricks

[Admin]

In todays competitive world getting your job, specially the first one is getting more and more tough. Here are some tips and tricks summarised based on my experience.

[Admin]

Resume:
Resume is a visiting card to your career.
Preapre a neat and clean resume aimed to portray your career and at the same time appealing to the interviewer.
A CV should not be too long or too short.
Ideally think yourself from the interviewers point of view.
No one will be comfortable with a 10 page long resume.
Neither with a too short one - say a page long.

How do you say a cv is just right size?
If I were a recruiter, I will be comfortable with a two to three page long resume.

What are the mandatory contents of a CV?
1) A short description of your experience, profile, capabilities and achievements - in not more than 4 sentences.
2) Achievements - both academic and professional.
3) Non-curricular activity record.
4) Personal and contact details

In that order.

As your experience grows, reduce emphasis on your experience in the training period and at the start of your career. Highlight those skills and experience that you have acquired recently.

If you are a starter, try to highlight your strong area of potential. For instance you can say about your ability to focus on a given task - or may be you can say that you are good in analytical skill or that you are good in communication - written or oral. Be prepared to have a point to prove your case.
If you think you dont have something extra-ordinary, just think over it again. You will have that something to highlight. Believe me. Its in-built in every individual and waiting to be discovered.

Remember to look at your cv from the point of view of a recruiter and get over anything that might look extra-ordinary. I have the experience of seeing a cv given to me for reviewing which started that the candidate has worked for 136 projects in 6 years. Not the way to present yourself to a potential employer.

Your cv should be legible and easy to read and find contents in.
A good way to put it is - while going through, the reader should not feel anything odd - like too small or too big font size.
Give proper headings to the contents.
Format your CV in word document or pdf to make it easy to be printed.
Name the file with your relevent job title and post name.
Have different formats of cv handy. viz. pdf, txt, doc.
Do not forget to give your handphone number and mail id.
In this age of electronic era, these will be the most easiest to contact with.
Have a stylish way of writing. Take care to do spell-check and correct grammatical errors.
Give your cv to your friend and ask him to comment.
(I can't help if your boss happens to be your friend )

My collegue was a planning engineer and he was asking me about piping engineering. I was also telling him the nuances of piping design. Next day he handed me a cv to check his piping engineer resume. :D

Write a cover letter that will make a difference.
Highlight in bold letters important points though I will caution you not to overdo this.